Maria Nikolantonaki | Associate Professor at University of Burgundy, IUVV

Maria Nikolantonaki research interests lie in general in the utilizing and developing analytical chemistry as a tool to answer questions arising in food processing and food quality disciplines.

The most excitement for me comes from useful applications in mapping chemical interactions, targeting modern technological processes or respecting traditional methodology for a better understanding of food, and especially wine composition and aging potential. Since I integrated the PCAV research group (Physical Chemistry applied to Food and Wine) at the University of Burgundy, my main research activities are related to wine oxidative stability towards the development of predictive tools concerning wine aging potential.

In particular, my work centers on three areas: i) reaction chemistry of sulfur containing compounds by using NMR and LC-TOF-MS technics, ii) determining the effects of processing on grapes, juice and wines composition (LC-MS based metabolomics), and iii) development of convenient analytical tools for use in situ measurements and highly sensitive techniques using modern (EPR, GC-TOF-MS, LC-TOF-MS) instrumentation for measuring trace volatile compounds, targeted phenolic compounds, peptides and antioxidants.